1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a technology for deploying an application written in non-object-oriented languages on an open platform.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been attempts to deploy old (legacy) systems that are running in mainframe or office computer on an open system. Specifically, attempts have been made to deploy applications written in non-object-oriented languages such as C or COBOL on open platforms such as Windows (registered trademark), Linux, UNIX (registered trademark), and the like, and to run them at the same functional level as applications on an open system, which are based on Java (registered trademark) 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE).
The functional level mentioned above refers to the essential session management function in particular. For example, let us consider a case of a server application being accessed by a client application for a request using HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP). HTTP ends a session after each request, and is therefore unable to treat a plurality of requests as one session and as a result unable to share data between the plurality of requests occurring in one session. On the contrary, J2EE implements SessionBean, which is a component of a program (Bean) and which treats a plurality of requests as a single session and enables sharing of data between a plurality of requests occurring in a single session.
A method is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. H9-508742 in which a business application written in a non-object-oriented language is deployed on an open platform and the session management function is implemented by redefining separately an independent object that signifies an actual or a conceptual meaning pertaining to a business, and by interposing the object in communication.
However, in the conventional technology, the workload on the application developers increases every time an application written in a non-object-oriented language is deployed on an open platform and the session management function is implemented. In other words, the application developers must separately redefine the object signifying the actual or conceptual meaning of the business in the business application written in the non-object-oriented language, as well as redefine the attributes of the object, including input parameters and output parameters of the business application. As a result, every time an application written in a non-object-oriented language is deployed on an open platform and the session management function is implemented, the application developers must define an object in the server application, thus increasing their workload.
Thus, there is a need of a technology for deploying an application written in an object-oriented language on an open platform and also realize session management function without putting much burden on the developers.